COMPTROLLER OF THE TREASURY. XV

154.00. This table also shows the amount of interest and charges

which will be owing by the Susquehanna and Tide-Water Canal
Companies, in case they should fail to comply strictly with the
terms of the compromise made by the Acts of 1865 and 1866,
which, in event of such failure, would now be $911,354.78.

NATIONAL BANKS.

Table 18 shows the amount due from certain National Banks for
the year 1872, for State taxes on the shares of their capital stock,
to be $28,372 33.

Table No. 19 exhibits the arrearages of State taxes dne from cer-
tain National Banks from 1864 to 1871 inclusive, together with in-
terest to 1st July 1872, to be $132,663.38.

The other National Banks not mentioned in these tables have
paid their State taxes according to law.

The whole amount of State taxes due from National Banks 1st
July 1872, was $161,035.71.

These institutions have, upon one pretext and another, continued
to evade the payment of the State taxes, and will no doubt employ

all the learning and ingenuity of couuscl to postpone the day of
settlement. Gifted by the Federal Government with extraordinary
powers and privileges to which the rest of the people of the coun-
try cannot attain without the consent of certain officers of the
Federal Administration, the stockholders of these banks, through
their officers, are restive under the demand of the State officers for
the performance of their obligations to the State, and the long im-
munity from payment, which they have contrived to obtain by
different means, from time to time, has emboldened them to an effort
to escape taxation by the State altogether.

The claims for the State Taxes of 1872, have been sent to the
State's Attorneys for suit under the Act of 1872, Chapter 172, and
the accounts of arrearages have been placed in the hands of the
Boards of County Commissioners, and the Appeal Tax Court of Bal-
timore City, pursuant to the directions of the Act of 1872, Chapter
237.

As might have been anticipated, the legislation of the last ses-
sion intended to enforce the payment of the taxes due from the
National Banks, has met with firm resistance by some of those bodies
who have combined together, to procure, if possible, further escape
from payment. This legislation is now undergoing judicial scrutiny,
and it will not be marvellous if the ingenuity of the ablest counsel,